A small gray cloud—suggestive of ash emissions—lingered above Batu Tara Volcano on August 6, 2010. A large-scale view from a different satellite instrument [the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)] on the same day shows the plume extending due west from Batu Tara before disappearing under a blanket of clouds. Batu Tara has been active since January 2007. Since then the volcano has sent plumes of ash and steam into the air, sometimes in short bursts, occasionally in a near-continuous stream. Located about 55 kilometers (34 miles) from the nearest large island, activity at Batu Tara is monitored primarily by satellite. This natural color image was acquired by the Advanced Land Imager (ALI) aboard the Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite.
References & Resources
- Global Volcanism Program. n.d. Batu Tara. Accessed August 6, 2010.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Robert Simmon, using ALI data from the NASA EO-1 team. Caption by Robert Simmon.
